Way to go Ferocious -Josh-

So yesterday I was watching Pike out the front window as he sat watching me in the front window when the electric company meter-man walked through the gate to read the meters on the house in front of us. (He does it from our front yard.) Pike watched him while I watched Pike to see what he would do. Pike looked about as interested in the guy as he is interested in the door mat he was sitting on. Not even a bark. Just kinda watched him go about his business. I guess we can just hope he is a little meaner to actual threats like the gas-man. On another note we found him a new friend who lives around the corner. A little boxer girl who belongs to a nice couple. Pike hasn't met the other dog yet but we hope it goes well.

Pike




So sorry to those who have seen or facebook or heard about Pike but he has taken so much of our time that we haven't had a chance to tell you all about him.

So just over a week ago, while Morgan was in Boise watching her dad graduate from POST Josh was up to something. Friday morning he skipped class and went to Downey to look at a puppy to help Morgan feel safer and calmer while he was out at work untill late at night. Pike as we have come to call him was the last one of the litter to go and with a great price and papers we could not pass him up.

Pike was born on Dec. 8 2008. His father was a large (REALLY FRIGGIN BIG) fawn boxer like he is and his mothe was a dark brindle boxer. Both were great dogs. Pike was just shy of 10 pounds when we picked him up from the breeder and has in the last week put on another 5 pounds which makes him roughly 5 times bigger than the only other dog in the family, Stanley who is Josh's older sister's 3 pound chihuahua. (They haven't met.) So far he is healthy and loving life in his new home. We have taken him to see Josh's family in Idaho Falls and as long as we can keep him out of their cat's or Stanley's food he is a good dog there too. He is almost fully house trained and his only problems are when we leave him for extended periods of time so it probably is simply down to him just not being able to hold it any more.

Pike found out what a cat was for the first time Saturday evening when he met Spaz, Josh's parents' cat. Josh was watching Pike getting closer and closer to the cat sniffing out the situation all the time looking back at Josh periodically with a look that seemed to say what the crap happened to that dog? ITS UGLY! Josh warned Pike to keep his distance which he did while Josh was watching. A few minutes later while no one was watching we all heard a whap followed by Pike's claws trying to gain traction on the tile while he ran away whimpering. Needless to say the cat stood its ground.

Pike's favorite trick is to get us stuck anywhere we take him. Everyone who sees him thinks he is the cutest thing and HAS to pet him for a minute. PETCO and PETSMART trips are planned out in our day to take atleast a while if he is with us.

Pike is in our opinion a great dog and will be great for us. He is smart and looks great.

Finally Here -Josh-

So this morning I took Morgan to class then went home to get myself ready for the day. I got everything done and was going to head out myself. I made a few futile steps to the mailbox just hoping to have something there but I second guessed myself and turned around. Then third guessing myself I headed back toward the mailbox hoping for something to show. After turning away again I decided that the check would at least settle my nerves and went to look. As i looked over the fence to find no new footprints in the snow outside I still looked and found that little letter I have been waiting for for some time now.

Needless to say the anticipation was killing me to the point where I had to have Morgan open it when I dropped her car off at work. Turns out I did pretty well considering it was my first attempt at any written civil service exam. I got 84 of 90 right which landed me at 23 in line for an interview. With 10-12 retirees coming up from the FD here I still feel I am in the running for a chance. On top of that I still have to get my EMT-B which will land me higher when I turn it in for 5 more test points which will bring me up to a 89 of 90 or 98.8888888888(you get the idea) percent. I hope that in six months when that goes through I will be able to be one of the next in line for an interview. Here's to hoping enough others suck it up in their interviews.

Just a rant -Josh-

So nothing yet from the Fire Department... Me and that mailman are going to have to have a serious come to Jesus talk. We will keep you posted

Keep waiting...

So to those of you who have been following closely enough to realize that yesterday was two weeks after the Fire Department test we still don't know. It was bugging Josh so bad that he began to just wish for an answer. He was so wound up after he saw nothing Thursday that he decided to "forget" the no call request and go down to Human Resources Friday if he had still heard nothing in the mail. Thursday he saw the mailman coming up the walk and was out to the mail box in seconds. When only the Ensign came he was mad, then wondered if he was going to be struck down for being so pissed off at getting a church magazine. Friday nothing but bills and insurance crap came so he went down to Human Resources to get an answer on the current dilemma he was in. Turns out they needed two weeks to process the tests and decide who to interview before they sent anything out in the mail. So now we are still waiting... until then keep praying, chanting, meditating, and whatever rituals you think could improve our chances.

The First Big Test


Well one thing is for sure for those who wanted pictures this one will probably make you stop asking. Those are canker sores in Josh's mouth. Turns out when he gets stressed they begin to apear randomly throughout his mouth. With the aproach of the first test for Pocatello Fire he got stressed out to the point that it caused all sorts of problems including the canker sores. You can see three easily there is a fourth there and one more on the upper lip you cannot see. He took the test Friday morning and got done before anyone else. He went to review and about 10 questions into his review the woman directing the class told us we had just passed the one hour mark of a two hour time limit. He finished the review and feels he did exceptionaly well and with the addition of 5 extra points for the EMT-B certification that will come this spring he is confident in getting called back for a follow up test and interviews and the like. Here's to hoping he gets one of the positions, and soon! It will help with his big red truck withdrawls. Everytime he hears a siren his head pokes up like a prarie dog and he gets kinda whiney. Anyway untill then he will just have to suck it up.

The New Place



Well Everything has gone well with the move. We were able to move to a small house A LOT closer to campus (about a block and a half away) that has a full basement for Josh's bikes and other storage as well as a garage for the motorcycle and Morgan's new car. We got her a Sunfire that will work greatly for us while it is just the two of us. Everything is going great and as soon as we get all of the burned out light bulbs replaced we will have light. It seems Josh finds another bulb out almost daily which excites him because he realizes another switch actually works. We do not have our own internet and we are skiving one of our neighbors. We just hope it stays on long enough for us to get this written and published. The house is Yellow and though it is old it is nice. There is a small bedroom for us and an even smaller 1/2 bedroom that we use for a study and maybe at some point in the distant future a nursery. Don't get your hopes up Mothers we don't have anything planned nor are going to plan anything. You can thank google and the idiots who do the street view. They did a good job of driving up and down the alleys and actually got a picture of our house. But if you move to far it takes you out front and you can't see the house.

An inconvenient week.

To begin with this week could be erased from our lives and I think neither of us would be upset. With Christmas coming this next week we have been a bit frazzled. Whoever thought of putting finals week right before the week of Christmas needs to be strung up by the toenails and shot with a nail gun at ten yards, I say ten because that would only leave welts on the perpetrators body. But beyond that both of us have had one of those weeks where we are waiting for another week.
Morgan's family much like Josh's has its functioning problems and this week things were much of the same. Morgan was ready to 'divorce' her family much like Josh does weekly, if not daily, due to the stress they have placed her under.
Josh's week sucked too. His Tuesday route's salesman forgot to clear the week before's order which sent out twice as much product as required. Josh got stuck all day Tuesday re figuring the orders of everyone of his stops. Then on Thursday he got held up over and over by stores only to have his boss send him into downtown Boise at noon after a single box of toffee from a place he had never been, with bad directions.
To top it all off Thursday evening our landlord came to us to update us on their move. For the past few weeks everything looked like they would be in California and away from us without a hitch. Then they came to us and told us that the company who he was going to work for was unwilling to purchase their house if there were renters. So now we are off to find a new apartment. If anyone is moving or knows someone who is let us know please. We hate apartment hunting.
At least on a positive note the plumber finally came after 8 months of pestering our landlord to fix the drain on the bathtub. Hooray for showers that don't come with ankle deep water.

My Birthday-Josh-

So the 25 of November is my birthday and I got stuck working. I asked for the week off two months ago and didn't get an answer. My boss came to me at the beginning of the month and asked what my plans for this week were and then proceeded to tell me I could not have the time off. Due to this we planned my birthday for Saturday night and had friends over for cake and games. We wound up talking all night as is typical for me so if you want to bring games over to play with us you have to get right into it. Morgan made me this amazing cake for me. It was layered with both chocolate cake and peppermint ice-cream. She got the idea from a brochure we picked up at Coldstone. The outside was layered with Ganache which is a fudge. Well she began to put it on the cake but it would not set because it was too warm. I decided to be the smart ingenuitive person I am and thought it would work to spray my Computer's air duster can upside-down to freeze the ganache in place. I tested it in one place and it didn't really work so we wound up freezing everything to help it set up. We pulled out the cake every once in a while to put more on and during one of these times I tasted the ganache and it tasted horrible. It wasn't until later when Morgan looked at the can and saw a word she didn't really recognize. She asked me what bittergent was and it was at that point that I realized what I had done. So far the only one who has gotten a nasty piece of cake was me so I guess it serves me right. If anyone reads this and got a piece of really awful piece of cake you can blame me. I apologize. Morgan reminds me to tell you it is completely harmless other than the taste.

Pocatello Mountain Biking -Josh-

Pocatello, though it has some downfalls has a few great things that cause me to be absolutely infatuated with the area. The biggest is probably the large network of mountain bike trails all within 20 miles or less of where Morgan and I live. I thought it was an OK idea to post some way fun pictures of a friend of mine, Nathan Coffin, and I racing through a puddle as well as some riding through some beautifull fall leaves. The puddle that we found was a ton of fun, as one of us rode through the other would take the picture and then pull away as fast as we could to keep the camera dry before the wave of water drenched us even more. When I got home I took off my shoes as I was getting ready for a shower. Morgan took one look at my socks and told me to throw them away. I didn't think that just because they were pretty much dyed brown that they had to be trashed but Morgan thought otherwise.